NBDC Messages - finding a way of communicating them in a compelling way


Rather than a single Digital Story we may find different ways to communicate messages over the course of the evening dinner:

  • Testimonials or stories from partners
  • Existing digital stories – edited down
  • Photo sequences
  • Video clips

The evening will take the form of a "Conversation Dinner" with a messages menu.




Item or message
Ideas for format (Max 2 minutes per message)
Person responsible


Introductory bit – explaining where the messages came from
powerpoint
Simon
MC
What is new and how does it link to other messages?
1. Local community empowerment and leadership is critically important to achieve long-term benefits and sustainable outcomes of rainwater management programs.
Existing video clip, farmer voices, photos of farmers in workshops
(we could invite farmer to join and introduce for the Sharefair)
Beth
Alan

2. Partnerships should integrate and share both scientific and local knowledge and encourage innovation through “learning by doing” based on scientific principles. Such partnerships are more likely to lead to sustainable outcomes than either local practices alone or promoting purely scientific technologies from outside the community.
Video of participatory monitoring already on Blip TV. Termite project slide show.
Kees
Alan

3. Strengthening and transforming institutional and human capacities among all stakeholders is a critical requirement to achieve the potential benefits of the Sustainable Land Management Program. This should include a special focus on supporting Development Agents as the front-line champions of the new rainwater management paradigm.
Alan to present a few photos of FEAST training

Testimonial from DA’s
Short interview with Abeyu backed up by facts and figures. FEAST training from Holetta
Alan
Alan

4. A necessary condition for successfully implementing sustainable innovative programs at scale is creating, aligning and implementing incentives for all parties with due consideration for risk management.
Flip charts showing discussions with farmers and DA's on what they need as incentives to allow them to do their work.

Video clip or photographs from Wat-a-Game workshop – needs editing.
Zelalem
Simon

5. Adapt the growing number of new models and learning and planning tools along with improved learning processes to increase the effectiveness of planning, implementation, and capacity building.
Have a copy of Wat-a-Game gameboard in the room. Also the Happy Strategies cards. Brief on Wat-a-Game. Also a short two images on a modelling tools e.g. Cropwat, SWAT, Nile Goblet tool.

(Powerpoint showing the different tools and indicating plans for further developing tools.
Tools: Nile Goblet, Happy Strategies/Wat-a-Game, SWAT, participatory video, participatory photography, FEAST, Ecosaut, Aquacrop. Kindie to gather pictures or tools using NBDC blog.
[I think we said we would focus on 2-3 tools?-DM])
Kindie
Simon

6. Strengthen the integration among multiple rainwater management interventions at watershed and basin scales.
Presi presentation showing a watershed and zooming in on various interventions and describing how they interact.

(Example – pictures of forage on bunds. Goblet tool. Happy Strategies. Pictures from WOCAT manual.)
Eva/Josie
Simon

7. Pay more attention to the downstream and off-site benefits of rainwater management in addition to upstream or on-farm benefits and costs.
Tracy working on a clickable map.

Picture of Blue Nile Falls from Peter, map of infrastructures and other visuals from Tracy. Post-it picture from Wat-a-Game workshop from Beth. Tracy to put together visuals through clickable map – Simon to talk to it on the night.
Tracy
Alan

8. Pay more attention to improving markets, value chains and multi-stakeholder institutions to enhance the benefits and sustainability of rainwater management investments.
Series of stills: potatoes at Jeldu, onions. Positive and negative implications. Work on innovation platforms to make the market work. Pictures around fodder interventions and livestock production from Aberra.
Alan
Alan


During the course of the evening: Video voxpop – 90 second interviews to get reactions. E.g. what messages resonate most with you. How are you going to use the messages in your ongoing work – Ewen to organize.

Outro


NBDC is closing but lots of other things are opening up – WLE, Humdtropics, their own programmes. Something from diners too.


Also


General testimonials - interspersed throughout.
Interview with Dr Muse about how NBDC has influenced their curricula.
Dr Fentahun - ????
Abay Basin Authority - ????

Amanda comments - before she loses them (22.10.13):
1. Really like the messages menu and the range of voices.
2. Would like to suggest we work on some common language cutting across each voice and message so that we ensure enough connectivity and coherence of message. Risk of coming across as disjointed. Will certainly need a "rehearsal" and prep-support.
3. Would like to suggest (but feel free to throw out) that intro ensure policy-savy wide perspective, anchoring messages in the research but also with a vision that stretches beyond the Ethiopian Highlands, across the basin and aligns with the big challenges ... and comes back full circle with last intervention (by Alan at the moment) that looks forward. Would also be interested in giving the NBDC a global CPWF context - using the programme messages to reinforce the NBDC specific messages (and they do).
4. This is a show - that we need to make sure we have the "right" audience for.
5. Overall message of engagement/dialogue spaces is a bit missing - especially in terms of national platform ... can we link this element better?

From Doug 22-10
I think this is going to be really something special. It will be important to be willing to cut out less critical things to keep it sharp and within a reasonable time.
At the end of the dinner, we should invite the highest-ranking person to say a few words on behalf of the Ethiopians. And I would make sure this person is briefed ahead of time on what we plan to do so she/he can think about what to say in response.
I had also suggested to Simon yesterday that in the following week, Alan-Simon should follow up with the key people in the Ministry and EIAR--including the State Minister, and the person in charge of the SLM Program; as well as with key donors. Just to reinforce the messages but also to stimulate interest in follow-up work, aimed at supporting the transformation of their SLM Program paradigm. I wish someone would tell me exactly what the review of the SLM Program that I hear about has been doing, what changes may come in SLM2, and how our partnership can connect and support it. If there is no good follow up, we will not achieve the outcomes that we potentially could.

Notes of the event

Follow up discussion (25/10/2013)


The idea is to present a semi-polished final product which would be finalised with e.g. DuckRabbit in the final weeks/months of 2013. The dinner is the product.
In a face-to-face event the voices are what matters and we need to make sure we are coherent.

We need a 'rehearsal' soon and a 'dress rehearsal' right before.
  • Q: Eva: How will it be played out?
  • A: It will be a conversation dinner with different courses throughout with a couple of punchy ways to present the messages. Perhaps we could have vox pop short interviews to see how this resonates with the guests and we can use this for the final product.
  • Q: Is it crucial to keep messages apart?
  • A: The idea is to have an introduction to all the messages as one menu at the beginning. A printed menu sitting on each table would bring back these messages coherently. Then these messages are presented one by one or in small batches. We will have only about 2' per message so we can't present the evidence in depth. We don't want to spend too much time on the 'NBDC' itself but we want to make sure that practical ways forward relate to bits of work that NBDC has come up with.
Elias will be leading the organisation of the Share Fair event with support from Ewen and Belay will take the lead of the dinner (ARARI, ORARI, EIAR etc.). Fethia Ahmed can also help with the organisation of these events as and when and a short contract will be drafted up for her.

ACTION: Belay to invite the right people with support from Yemisrach.
ACTION: Kees to prepare invitation with Amanda (and Belay).

Message #1 (community empowerment):
Beth's presentation about videos:
PV process could be a good product to showcase. Only the start of the PV video and presenting how this was screened back to participants. There are other digital stories that could be featured. High energy. This video will be slowed down a bit.
Other possible inputs: IP video, field day video.
Possibly these first 2 messages could be combined. #1 could use bits of the PV video and Kees's message could use the IP video/digital story.
FORMAT: Video
ACTION: Beth to give videos to Fethia.


Message #2 (scientific/local knowledge partnerships):
Kees asked pictures from Beth about termite management and he could show these as well as pix on feeds. Perhaps good to show another topic. RIU pix are many but what do we want to show... 5-8 pictures. Focusing only on termite management should be enough, to illustrate work.
FORMAT: PPT Slides (pictures and one sentence)


Message #3 (Strengthening institutional/human capacities):
Tracy can't lead this and message #7. We shouldn't focus on DAs but if we talk about that we could use a slideshow. Perhaps someone from a Uni can talk about capacity development? Alan or Simon could describe what we've done e.g. how we've supported DAs rather than institutional CD of Uni students. Another example could be the FEAST training for woreda experts.
FORMAT: (purely) Oral testimony

Message #4 (Incentives):
We have video clips and photographs and flipcharts but they're not in a format that we can introduce. The positive aspects should be introduced and then areas for improvement. We've done this work with government officials etc.
FORMAT: Flipchart slides

Message #5 (Adapt learning and planning tools):
Kindie planning to present e.g. CropWat slides.
We can also present Wat-A-Game.
FORMAT: PPT Presentation (about planning tool) and live demo of participatory tool (live demo of Wat-a-Game).

Message #6 (Integrate interventions at watershed/basin level):
Josie and Eva working on this. One idea: watershed as a photo with lowlands, highlands etc. Would be great to introduce this visual of the watershed. Different cards introducing the interventions at various levels and how they interact with each other.
FORMAT: Prezi to introduce different examples across the watershed.
ACTION: Eva and Josie to prepare Prezi with the script for the presentation.

Message #7 (Downstream and off-site benefits):
FORMAT: Clickable story map with upstream and downstream interventions and consequences. Tracy may need support from the rest of the team to track good pictures etc.

Message #8 (Markets, VCs and MSPs):
FORMAT: LIVE digital story as a series of images about the value of markets, VCs, MSPs.
We can focus this message on gender issues also. But the second part of Alan's message (carefully considering entry points) is also important. The important message is around balancing short-term and long-term effects.

During the dinner, message will be presented in 'packages': messages 1-2-3, messages 4-5-6, messages 7-8.
We need to focus on some questions to unpack for each 'course'.
For each 'message batch', we need to ask the same questions e.g. 'how does this resonate with your experience?' and 'what can we do about it'?
The idea is that there's at least one NBDC person at each table.

We could organise a series of tables with displays of tools etc. for pre- and post-dinner interactions.

ACTION: Each message owner to think about 'What's new?' and 'how does this message relate to other messages'?
ACTION: Everyone to prepare their materials and put these on the wiki (on this page) by 4 Nov. or 8 Nov. and Alan will review materials on the 4th.
ACTION: Fethia to collect presentation materials, liaise with Belay on list of invitees (mostly movers and shakers e.g. Belay, Fantahun, Seleshie, chair of SLM Melaku Taddesse, Kaled/Sam (ATA), head of ARARI, head of ORARI, Alan, Simon, Doug, Chair of NP steering committee, ministry of forestry - donors unclear [PSNP, GIZ, USAID, SDC, Water and Land Resource Centre etc.] and send email invitation.
ACTION: Everyone to put a list of possible guests on the wiki.